Cooperstown Repair Cafes build community while fixing things
The Cooperstown Repair Café will be featured at the Summer Tuesday Cooperstown Farmers’ Market once a month in July, August, and September. Community members can bring broken items and volunteer repair coaches will help to fix them for free. For the Repair Café on July 14, 1 pm to 4 pm, people can bring in jewelry as well as clothing and other items in need of mending. Coaches also can give how-to advice about jewelry repair and how to repair clothes and personalize them with visible mending. The Repair Café is not able to do alterations.
The repairs will be done free of charge, materials needed to fix items may be available to purchase.
“The Cooperstown Repair Café has been a great addition to the farmers’ market and the community as a whole,” said Peg Odell, program and communications manager of Otsego 2000. “In addition to the great work done by our talented corps of expert repair coaches, the café spreads the word about the importance of fixing things instead of throwing them out. People have told us the café has inspired them to fix things themselves.”
She said this summer the Cooperstown Farmers’ Market will host the Repair Café on the second Tuesday of the month on July 14, August 11 and September 8. “You can give your things a second chance on the second Tuesday of the month,” she said. Different items can be repaired at each Repair Café, for the listing of items you can bring to be repaired on a specific date, see otsego2000.org/repaircafe.
The Cooperstown Repair Café is a collaborative program of Otsego 2000, which runs the Market, the Otsego County Conservation Association, and the Otsego Land Trust.
The Repair Café concept was developed by Martine Postma in the Netherlands in 2009, and now there are more than 3,800 community-run Repair Cafés around the world.
The Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, located at 101 Main Street in Pioneer Alley in Cooperstown, is open on Tuesdays, 12 pm to 4 pm in July, August, and September as well as Saturdays year-round, 9 am to 2 pm. For more information on the Cooperstown Repair Café, or to volunteer to be a repair coach, please see otsego2000.org/repaircafe or call Peg Odell at Otsego 2000, 607/547-8881.
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